Clemson OC Tony Elliott hurt by social media criticism after loss to Georgia

It’s fair to say the Clemson Tigers did not have a good night on offense in Saturday’s loss against Georgia. Offensive coordinator Tony Elliott heard about it, too.

Elliott vented Monday about some of the social media criticism he’d received following the 10-3 loss, a game that saw Clemson held to just 180 total yards of offense.

“I’ve already got the Twitter fingers sending me hate mail telling me that I suck and I need to be fired. I need to go back to Michelin. And things of that nature,” Elliott said Monday, via Matt Connolly of ClemsonSports. “And it hurts. It hurts for a couple of reasons. It hurts because I know how much work this offensive staff and these players have put in. I know how committed they are to this program.

“I get a notification. I go to the notification and it’s like, ‘Go back to Michelin.’ Or somebody sends me a message on Instagram. I don’t know if it’s a recruit or family member or something and I open it up. But I understand their frustration and the only thing I can say to them and anybody out there about this group of young men is they work their tails off. They take pride in what they do.”

Elliott was an industrial engineer at a Michelin plant prior to becoming a football coach, hence the Michelin cracks. Clemson fans certainly know their own quite well.

Fan frustration is a fact of life, especially after a performance like that, and it’s never appropriate when it crosses over into actual abuse. However, this sounds pretty tame, and plenty of people have gotten far worse on social media. Elliott probably didn’t need to draw attention to these tweets. He’s probably going to hear even more about Michelin now that he has.